The Bitceur Scam – Don’t Become the Next Victim

Recently, Bitceur.com service appeared, promoting itself as a place where you can securely store cryptocurrency and other assets. I managed to gather credible supporting information that clearly reveals it is, actually, a deceptive platform.

Regardless of the promises of the most user-friendly, reliable, and client-friendly service, Bitceur.com does not offer any of them. In fact, all this is just a gilded wrap around a dirty scam, which takes your money and never returns them. Any stories about gifts, sponsorship from celebrities etc are absent as well.

It is better to prevent, than repair and repent!

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Bitceur Scam Overview

Originally, Bitceur poses as a cryptocurrency trading & cryptowallet platform with outstandingly low commission fees. Another bright selling point for this site is partnerships with celebrities that are known in the crypto world. Vitalii Buterin (Ethereum creator), Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet – the site claims having significant support from them. To make these claims look real, rascals use deepfake videos where those celebrities promote the fake crypto service as if it was the best thing in the world. For known reasons, Elon Musk is the most common among them. But, as I said in the introduction, all this is just a vivid wrap around an obvious scam.

Bitceur Scam

First and foremost, Bitceur repeats the design of numerous similar websites. There are quite a few examples, like Blazebitx, Zynoxy or Donometa. They are totally identical in terms of visual elements, with minor discrepancies in the webpage header. Other particulars, and at times even crypto wallet addresses, are identical. Presumably, all these fraudulent sites are managed by a single gang of fraudsters.

Cryptocurrency Scam Summary

How the Bitceur Scam Works?

Bitceur is a part of a extensive cryptocurrency scam scheme that started circulating actively in 2023. Scammers who stand behind it use various website designs, which still share the identical overall layout. Another shared element are the ways the scams like NAME are promoted, and the manner all this ends up to the victim of the scam. To reach peak efficiency, frauds apply sophisticated psychological tricks that make the user believe in the authenticity of the website. But let’s review them one by one.

Step 1: Promotion

To start the deceptive scheme, criminals establish and fill accounts on well-liked social media platforms. They mainly aim at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Subsequently, the advertising campaign begins. Using bots and sponsored promotions (when achievable), scam actors boost the presence of their scam activities to possible victims. And as I said, fraudsters do not shy away using deepfake for creating videos with the aforementioned celebs that advertise their scam to the public. To boost the folks even more, frauds claim the bonus for every user who enrolls the service immediately.

Promotions of cryptoscams like Bitceur in TikTok. Most of these videos are AI-generated deepfakes

Users obtain an encouragement to register, drawn by the promise of receiving cryptocurrency rewards valued at thousands of dollars, all free of charge. To increase the attractiveness of the offer, false claims of cooperation with a celebrity are added. As you may guess, these claims are completely baseless.

Step 2: Gaining Traffic

Upon following the promos, victims end up on a page filled with appealing offers. “Crypto starts with Bitceur”, “Your crypto savings are secured with Bitceur, “Start earning with Bitceur – they look rather reliable. To heat up the interest and make the users proceed to step 3, scammers say that claiming the promoted bonus requires registration. And as nothing questionable happens at this point, uninformed users happily move on – especially since the reward appears to be right behind the corner.

At this point, it is possible to get away from the scam without any losses. Before you sign up using your personal data, rascals will not earn even a nickel from your presence on the website.

Step 3: Data Gathering

This is the starting poing of the main fraud action. As I just said, frauds bait folks into registration for bonuses. And all the personal data needed for it – username, email, cryptocurrency wallet address – are valuable for user identification. Solely by gathering this information and selling it further into the Darknet, crooks can earn quite a penny. Nonetheless, their plans go much further.

As it turns out, you cannot use the alleged bonus right away. To make it at least usable for cryptocurrency purchases, the user should top up the account with the equivalent sum. At this point, the final stage of the scam begins.

Step 4: Requesting funds

Obviously, any crypto purchases require you to have money on your account. In the case of Bitceur, users are also compelled to top up to claim the bonuses. And this is what creates the majority of the cash flow to this scam site. By topping up the account, users hope to get the pledged gift (usually $500-1000 in USDT), and may start participating on this site hoping to use all the credited money and withdraw them.

This is where the first obvious issues start to surface. When keeping an eye on the real cryptocurrency wallet vs what the site says, you can observe that no transactions are done whatsoever. And then, when you’d try to retrieve the capital from your account, the scam is finally uncovered to the user.

Step 5: Escaping from Funds Withdrawal

There’s no need to explain that scoundrels have zero intentions to give your money back. Though to make the denial look more legitimate, they’ve developed a whole bunch of reasons to decline the transfer-out request. Most of them repeat what KYC guidelines say, but in this case they are here only to make the withdrawal impossible.

By requesting your personal data, deceivers just stall hoping for you to understand that you’ve been scammed and stop contacting them. If you don’t – well, there are multiple other checks you should go through before getting your grand back. And each of these checks will reveal more and more information, which – you guessed it right – will be then traded on the Darknet. Never reveal your real info to strangers!

Signs of Scam

I gathered several facts that point at the scammy nature of the Bitceur.com. Actually, there are a lot of scams that fall under the same points, so they are pretty much universal.

• Absent company details. Bitceur does not provide any documentation about its ownership, location or registration. No legitimate contact details are given either. Moreover, it appears that the domain and all social network pages were registered quite recently.
• Fake sponsorship from a celebrity. Scams like Bitceur like to pick a celebrity as a sponsor of this entire campaign. For obvious reasons, fraudsters generally choose Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mr. Beast, Mark Zuckerberg, and similar celebrities. They do not disdain claiming partnership with a company as well. Even though Coinbase, Binance or MetaMask never heard of Bitceur, they do not care – this creates a halo of credibility.
• Potential Ponzi Scheme. The scam relies on a Ponzi-like referral system to spread reach through social media. In fact, only the first members will receive the payoff, at the cost of the money brought by other members.
• Hype without facts. Frauds can cheer up their victims from time to time, using claims about non-existent events. “We got contracts with Coinbase”, “Elon Musk mentioned us as the most prolific crypto project” – you could likely hear something like that. This is made to make people believe in their money return. This can be the sauce to make people top-up their accounts once again.
• Crypto-only incoming payments. Whether the user tries to top-up the account, hackers will only accept payments in crypto – no bank transfers or other payment methods. Such an approach completely hides the identity of the company and deprives you of the ability to ask for a refund.
• Claims are too good to be true. Let’s be sane and sober: even in crypto space, there are not many places where you can earn 50-100-200%. Being able to participate in all of them is nearly impossible, as well as it is impossible to insure or hedge all the risks. Even by that reason alone I can tell that the Bitceur is a definite scam.

What Should I do as a Victim?

If you had to deal with Bitceur site and fell victim to that scam, there are still some steps to take. They will make further scam attempts harder, and also boost the knowledge about that scam among folks.

• Secure Your Actions. Begin by promptly reporting the scam to appropriate local authorities tasked with handling financial fraud. Notify wallet providers and engage with social networks’ technical support teams. By taking these measures, you contribute to making the scammers’ operations significantly more difficult.
• Expand Awareness. Extend your efforts by sharing the scam information with your close friends. This action has a parallel effect to reporting to the authorities, as disseminating details about fraudulent crypto services reduces the potential victims they can deceive.
• Gather Evidence. Preserve comprehensive evidence by capturing screenshots and saving all pertinent data linked to the deceptive website. Collect the URL, screenshots of the main page, login interface, end-user license agreement (EULA), account top-up menu, and wallet addresses. These materials could prove invaluable for authorities in their pursuit of the scammers.
• Explore Refund Possibilities. While cryptocurrency payments generally fall outside the scope of refund policies within most banks, it’s worth investigating the potential for a refund in specific circumstances. Maintain optimism until you definitively confirm the loss.
• Convert Mistake into Wisdom. Transform your financial setback into a valuable learning experience. Treat your loss as an investment in understanding the tactics of crypto scam sites. Familiarize yourself with their key characteristics, how they lure individuals, and the grandiose promises they make. Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be well-equipped to recognize and avoid falling into future traps without incurring further losses.

Scan your system for possible malware infections

Beware of cross scams! Scam actors can use your trust to make you download some stuff or interact with certain documents. It may be a trap that installs malware to your system. There are no moral barriers or limits for these scoundrels.

Throughout the course of the fraud, its masters may contact you with specific documents. Alternatively, they may propose you to set up “cryptocurrency wallet applications” or “browser extensions” to streamline access to your cryptocurrency savings. As we previously determined, these scoundrels have no plan of restoring your funds. So, what can these emails and browser add-ons represent? You guessed – this is another side of the fraudulent scheme designed to throw you into deliberately running harmful applications onto your system.

Both extensions and files added to email messages can serve as a shell for various malware. In this case, I expect the presence of spyware and stealers among other types of malicious programs. While it is not mandatory for scammers to distribute malware, the chance is always above zero. As previously mentioned, their morality is of no concern, and their dignity is already severely tarnished. They have nothing to give up and aim to boost revenues.

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